


Just The Way It's Supposed To Be

by a_crack_in_the_reflection (berlitzschen)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: (I mean you can argue incest relationships are inherently unhealthy but), (there's no dependency here), Abuse, Angst, Childhood Abuse, Depressed Gilbert, Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Illness, Pre-Relationship, Prison AU, healthy relationship, unestablished relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 12:00:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10570881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlitzschen/pseuds/a_crack_in_the_reflection
Summary: Gilbert goes to prison and all his little brother wants to do is get him out. He's also got some mental illnesses and needs psychiatric help.





	1. "He can’t help it. And he doesn’t want to."

Gilbert Beilschmidt awoke to the scent of sweat and arousal suffocating him above his prison bed. He opened his eyes but the whole cell was almost formless darkness, the way it was each night. He desperately grappled against the weight of thighs pinning his chest down when a calloused hand reached down and jammed a thumb into his mouth. Its twin tore down the faded trousers and Gilbert’s now calmed hands instead held onto the thighs thrusting into his face. 

The hand, no longer necessary as Gilbert shrugged his groggy resistance away and wrapped himself around the fellow, wound through his hair, tugging feverishly.

It wasn’t a particularly violent affair. They never were.

Desperate and forceful, but never violent. It didn’t pay to be violent. Tearing apart the mouth of the guy you’re about to drill doesn’t make for a particularly happy end. Usually both parties wind up bleeding. Some common courtesy was generally used in these situations. Though the rules weren’t written out in any book, Gilbert assumed included both parties being conscious. 

But if the man fucking his face was any part of reality, Gilbert was wrong. 

He hummed then, partly in contemplation, another part just for fun. Both hands twisted in his hair and pulled Gilbert the rest of the way down. Perhaps he thought he’d choke Gilbert but Gilbert simply swallowed around him. The whole show of it all made Gilbert laugh—an audible laugh, from deep in his chest that traveled through his throat and vibrated. 

Gilbert knew his fellow was close now. He’d done this enough times to know the idiosyncrasies of how hips bucked down his throat. They always made you swallow, but Gilbert wasn’t bothered. So many of them got so far down his throat he rarely tasted it anyway. 

He came and Gilbert couldn’t breathe when his entire face was being pressed into the body above him, but he ignored it. He’d already learned not to panic when being suffocated. 

They left his mouth and staggered off of him, then crawled back up into their bunk. Gilbert, still tired and without any sense of time, simply swallowed his own spit a couple times and fell back asleep. 

~~~

 

The next morning was like the last. Roll call and everyone marched down in single-file for breakfast. He kept his head level just as he did every morning. Never high and proud, but also never down and weak. Others dragged their feet. Some stomped them. Others walked with their shoulders. But Gilbert did none of these. Instead, he walked coolly, almost thoughtlessly, as if he’d gotten away with murder and was walking the streets Paris with thousands. Another angle, which most saw of him from their position in the gutters, was that of a piece of meat walking a runway. 

Gilbert was aware of this, but didn’t care enough about himself to change. He was just him, and they were just them. 

Five foot ten, a lithe, unmuscled but strong, hundred and sixtyish pound body, hair almost platinum, and a face with alternatingly soft or sharp eyes—in prison, all of him was fuckable. In his father’s house, he was a queer—.

Actually, he was a queer anywhere. It’s what happens when you’re queer. You’re pretty much queer everywhere you go. Even if you say you’re not, you still are. It’s a thing. Like being stupid. 

He can’t help it. And he doesn’t want to. 

He can’t help being in prison, either. But someone’s trying to. 

It wasn’t until lunch time that something interesting happened. Gilbert could hardly call it interesting, but he did thoroughly enjoy it. 

Three fellows down the table were watching him. He looked up, either by chance, or because he felt eyes on him. They said something to each other, indiscernible in the noise of the mess hall, and turned right back to staring at him. Their eyes wandered up and down and around the curves of his body, and were eager to see what the table blocked from them. 

One of them had a scar running the length of his left cheek and another looked like a forcibly-sober, crack-addled skinhead. The third was twice Gilbert’s size with tattoos all up the length of biceps, but Gilbert was unperturbed. 

It was a joke, how easy and absentmindedly he licked his bottom lip. At once, all their eyes shifted to Gilbert’s wet tongue, and his pink lips, and his taunting mouth, and he laughed to himself. 

Women were right. Men were easy. To prove this, and to fuck with them a little more, Gilbert pushed his food away and wormed a few fingers into his mouth. He ran his tongue over each digit and when he had three in his mouth, he added three more from the other hand. Moving slower this time, he sucked on the tip of each of them before granting them entrance. 

Now he’d completely transfixed the men. Their mouths hung open and their tongues darted across their lips, as if suddenly parched. A few others down the table took notice just as Gilbert had inserted the second hand into his mouth and was now swallowing around both wrists. Gilbert’s eyes watered and he laughed, breathily, as he pulled his fingers, glistening with saliva, out of his mouth. 

Gilbert wiped his hands on his napkin just as the old klaxon sounded, signaling the end of lunch period. He thought it was funny how all the inmates stood at attention whenever the bells sounded. Of course, he did, too. It felt like the military all over again. A bunch of men ordering other men around. Everyone’s got a uniform, the doctors are all third-rate, and everything’s concrete and metal. 

Inmates could be halfway decent soldiers, Gilbert thought. They more-or-less listened, which was just the same as everyone he ever knew in the army. 

 

~~~

 

It’d been six months since the trial’s conclusion. Six months since he’d seen Ludwig. It was summer, now, and Ludwig was home from school on break. He’d wanted to visit Gilbert over spring break but their mother refused to let him borrow the car.

Gilbert was sitting at one of the tables in the visitor’s room. A few other inmates were around the room, chatting with their families—a lot of mothers and children with them—and the guards leaned against the walls, talking to each other, but watching the tables. Generally, the non-violent offenders with good behavior got visiting privileges. Though, Gilbert’s crime was a violent one, part of his plea included guaranteed visiting hours, though stipulated on good behavior.

And Gilbert had good behavior. 

And their judge was good. In fact, if he’d been great, Gilbert wouldn’t be here. Gilbert was glad he was only good. And because of Gilbert’s conviction, he should’ve been housed with the violent offenders, but because of his age, they’d been able to get him housed with unarmed robbers and petty thieves. Though he intended on pleading guilty from the get-go, his lawyer advised him to draw it out for a deal.

Lawyers were damn smart. He could see why Ludwig wanted to be one. Following the rules but taking advantage of the holes—completely playing the system to his advantage suited Ludwig. Gilbert was proud of how intelligent his little brother was. Gilbert didn’t have that way about himself. All he had was experience suffering. 

A guard escorted Ludwig to him. He didn’t even see them coming in his peripheral, but then all of a sudden, there he was, standing right in front of him. His little brother, who he swore last time, was an inch or so shorter, and had a more boyish jawline, now wore a black suit and tie. He looked grown up and professional and out of place in here with gruff guards and unrefined wrecks like Gilbert. He could be a surveyor studying wild animals in a tar pit. 

Gilbert was happy in this moment, looking at his little brother.

Apparently, Ludwig didn’t share the same reaction Gilbert had. Instead, his brother’s brows drew together and a gasp escaped him before he could control himself. His blue eyes shone wet, scared and so desperate. Gilbert couldn’t stop the way his stomach tightened at the sight of his little brother, looking so hurt and powerless, like Gilbert was his responsibility. It made him nauseous and effectively ruined every defense he had. 

He turned away just as Ludwig sat down across from him. 

“You’re so thin,” Ludwig said, bluntly, but he sat down in his chair softly, like he was afraid of scaring Gilbert. “And pale.” He finished, speaking even softer still. Gilbert could feel his earnest eyes on him—

On his whole body—

They hurt so much—

Twisted his heart and stomach into each other and tore like acid in his throat—

Making him almost completely incapable of speech the way his eyes welled and stung, and throat tightened and seized, but Gilbert didn’t care. He couldn’t stop himself from looking at his little brother.  
His eyes were still on Gilbert. Now he was biting his lip, searching for the right thing to say—or maybe he was waiting for Gilbert to say something—

To comment on the state of his appearance—maybe Ludwig was looking for an explanation, or some kind of reassurance. 

“Don’t worry about it, Luddy.” He added the nickname in an attempt to sound more thoughtful, and less like a cliché balancing on the edge of demise.  
Ludwig managed to look even more hurt by that and Gilbert suppressed a curse. His little brother hesitated for a moment and clenched his fist. 

“I have to get you out of here.”

“Ludwig—.”

“I shouldn’t have . . .” he trailed off, angry at himself more than anything. “I could get you a new trial.” He tried again. “I could find new evidence—.”

Gilbert almost snarled his next words out. “New evidence? Of what?”

“I could—.”

“Shut up,” Gilbert said with as much force and volume as he could without earning the attention of the guards. “The trial we went through was the best one we could have hoped for. The judge already thought everything was a little funky. Mom’s testimony didn’t help us, but it managed to make the judge feel like there was something going on. Two years with good behavior is awesome for that. And all you’re going to do by requesting a new trial is bringing those facts back under scrutiny again.” Gilbert leaned back in his chair, hands on the table out in front of him, a little less whipped up than before. “And it would probably only get me out of here, what, three months early? Six at best? I’ve heard of people in here waiting three years before their retrial ever went to court.”

Ludwig looked defeated and chastised. His shoulders slumped and he held his head down, and Gilbert felt bad, but it was necessary. 

“Don’t worry, Lud. You’re still pre-law. You could’ve been a lawyer with twenty years’ experience and you wouldn’t have been able to change the outcome.” It’s not your fault, Gilbert thought to himself. He knew if he said that then Ludwig would just get re-worked up, and Gilbert didn’t know if he had it in himself to yell at his brother again. 

Ludwig sighed and reached across the table. He pulled Gilbert’s hand into his own and ran a thumb over his knuckles—

He exhaled, as if simply touching his older brother calmed and reassured him in a way words couldn’t. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”


	2. “If you wanted someone to stroke you, you should have gotten locked up in a petting zoo.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Direct continuation of chapter one. Mostly lighter than the last one. 
> 
> (I'd love comments also if any of you are up for it lmao)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably going to regret posting this because I haven't completely read through it but I'm tired and I want to give you guys something. I'll also try to make the chapters stand alones instead of scene breaks so you don't have to keep on rereading the previous chapter (since this chapter is actually just the second half of chapter 1).

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Ludwig said. He looked up at Gilbert and smiled as he squeezed his older brother’s hand tight. Gilbert returned the smile easily then, and it was as if he felt like himself for a moment. 

“Don’t worry about it, Luddy. It’s hard to be the smart one all the time. But it’s good you can still admit when you’re wrong.” Gilbert teased. Ludwig laughed in that quiet way of his that always shook his shoulders. It was joyous, and free, and Gilbert couldn’t remember how that felt. “How’d this semester go for you? I haven’t gotten to hear anything in a while.”

Ludwig didn’t seem to know what to say, but he took the risk of sounding lame. He was so used to people asking him how he was doing, but none of them knowing anything about his situation, none of them actually caring. It wasn’t an issue, necessarily, he’d just gotten so used to rephrasing the same nonsense response that he needed a moment to remember he was answering someone who actually cared about him. 

“My classes were fine. Still easy—easy to me. I was told it was going to get harder but that’s what they said about it when I first got there. It’s been four years and I haven’t done any of that all-night studying everyone says they do.”

“That’s because you’re smart enough to use your day time. Everybody else is off doing stupid shit while you go home after school and do your studies.” Gilbert smiled. “I’m proud of you. You’re such a good kid. Way better than I was.”

Ludwig frowned but didn’t respond. He didn’t want to argue with his brother. He was happy just to be able to talk to him, and he didn’t want to get into a fight and leave his brother upset. They didn’t have a lot of time together, now, and wouldn’t for a long time, and Ludwig wanted to savor it.

“How’s mom?” Gilbert asked. 

Ludwig was surprised. He didn’t think his brother would broach the topic. Ludwig shrugged and answered him all the same. 

“Just as you’d expect. I . . . try not to talk to her, in all honestly.”

“Naw,” Gilbert tisked, smiling. “You shouldn’t be like that.” Gilbert continued before Ludwig could open his mouth. “But I understand. I mean, she was kind of a bitch about the whole thing.”

“She didn’t like me coming here today.”

“Well, duh.” Gilbert leaned back in his chair and looked at his brother through his eyelashes, like he sometimes did to the men here. “But look at you.” Gilbert grinned like a fox. “Defying your elders. You might take after me after all.”

Ludwig laughed, “I hope not. You’re kind of a dork.”

“I’m the dork?” Gilbert placed a hand across his heart, dramatic as he was. “Excuse me, but who dragged whom out every morning for a month to dig for fossils?”

“Hey, dinosaurs are awesome. Leave them alone. They’ve been through enough.”

“Same with our neighbor’s yard.” Gilbert laughed, more pleased with his own joke than Ludwig seemed to be. “Well, I don’t know where you got your smarts from, at least.”

“Yeah, that is a mystery,” Ludwig smirked. 

Gilbert playfully slapped his little brother. “You dick. ‘No, Gilbert, you’re so smart. I look up to you, Gilbert.’”

“If you wanted someone to stroke you, you should have gotten locked up in a petting zoo.”

“And if I wanted snark I’d go to the ocean.”

“Literally how do you confuse those two words?” 

“Snarks live in the ocean, Lutz.”

“No, sharks do. Snarks don’t live anywhere but in your imagination.”

“In my imagination have a slapped you?”

“No, you always miss—hey, ow—knock it off.”

“You’re such a dork _and_ a wise-ass, Lutz.” Gilbert exhaled contentedly. “I’m glad your studies are going well. I know you’ll kick all their asses.” 

It didn’t feel like an hour, but Gilbert noticed the guards shuffling out visitors at tables around them. It wasn’t nearly enough time. Ludwig noticed and stood up but leant back down to his brother, squeezing his hand tight. 

“I’ll write you. I’m opening up a P.O. box so you can send me stuff and mom have the chance to intercept it, okay?” Gilbert squeezed the hand back, hard, and held on as a guard came over to shuffle his brother off.

Ludwig reached down with his other hand and gently pried Gilbert’s fingers off of his own, tenderly handling each of them. They submitted under his touch almost instantly, not wishing to be let go of. Gilbert moved his own hand then and interlaced his fingers with his brother’s and tugged his hand against his cheek. The guard got antsy and said something to them. Ludwig responded confident, not willing to be pried from his brother just yet—

Not unless Gilbert wanted to as well. 

But Gilbert felt the authority of the guards all around him and the walls towering above his frame and all the desperation and longing for closeness evaporated from him like the breath from an animal squeezed between tire and tarmac. He was fearful and obedient and knew what would happen and his heart rate was starting to pick up. He let go of Ludwig's hand and was distantly aware of the guard walking Ludwig out. He couldn't focus on anything except the blood in his ears and his heart beating in his throat. 

Ludwig said something as he left that Gilbert couldn’t hear. His reality was too loud and it threatened to drown him if he didn’t retreat to some other, deeper ground. 

Going through motions and operating on something akin to autopilot, Gilbert eventually found himself back in his cell, not caring about how filthy his linens were, or how stale the air was. He just laid there, not counting anything, not really seeing anything, just lying with prone eyes, and dissolving into something far away from ragged bed sheets and white walls.


	3. "These were all normal things any normal person could choose to do, but the pattern is what’s important."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gilbert contemplates time and reflects on a dream he had, and has a realization.

They say a lot of things about time. That it moves to fast when you’re having fun; that it trudges on forever when you’re miserable. Gilbert was, most days before prison, miserable. Each of his days were spent pushing through to the time where he could go to bed, and even then, he discovered no great pleasure in sleeping. He wished for each day to be over, without wanting or knowing anything he was looking forward to. He sloughed through his shifts—even the time he was in the military, he did this. No matter where he went, all the days were the same. There was no great magnificence in the world, in people, in the sky and the stars. It was all just pieces of a broken carousel. 

It was the world just as it was. Meaningless conversations, and jobs, jobs, jobs. Questions about jobs. People always asking meaningless questions about meaningless jobs, which makes meaningless conversations about meaningless jobs, and it becomes just a big cycle of meaninglessness. 

And day-to-day, everything was meaningless. Gilbert, for as long as he could remember, didn’t feel any sense of urgency in the days. All his interactions appeared normal to most anyone. It was only little things that people couldn’t pick up on. Little things that, when examined individually, are quite normal, but when put together spell out ‘pattern of disorder’. 

Things like choosing to stay in instead of going out to eat with the rest of the family. Cancelling on outings with friends. Choosing not to stay late to work on something. These were all normal things any normal person could choose to do, but the pattern is what’s important. The pattern is what is missed. The pattern is what makes the hiccups into an illness. 

Although Gilbert couldn’t remember when he didn’t feel this way, he knew that he must not have been depressed, at some point. But he couldn’t remember when. So his days continued like this.

In prison, it was different. The world outside prison continues to move. Daily things people care about are still relevant, like car payments and human trafficking. They all still happen out there, but here, they’re almost imaginary. 

And for Gilbert, who already had a festering thought that the typical happenings of daily life were all arbitrary—but were a reality he couldn’t escape from—getting placed in prison, where the only things anyone cared about was their sixty minutes of yard time, and who was working the linen cart, prison was the best thing that could’ve happened to him.

He thought, perhaps, that it would have made him sad. Maybe not being able to see Ludwig, but even before he didn’t see his brother that much, him being off at university, and himself being stationed in Virginia. But even after his discharge, he was wayward. They’d given him a six-month stipend and Gilbert managed to stretch it out for nearly eight months, living with his friends, hardly eating. 

They drunk, mostly, and Gilbert laid around and stared at the ceiling through a haze of cigarette smoke. No one was accountable for him. Not even himself. How could he be? 

He worked a little bit here and there. Odd jobs. He painted a fence and nearly strangled himself on the fumes. In prison they had jobs, too. But Gilbert was on the bottom of the list for the desirable jobs. Instead he mopped floors, which really couldn’t be considered a job. You get paid for jobs. Mopping the floor was free labor. Moving pallets was free labor here, too. 

Usually they didn’t let the violent offenders have jobs. But it wasn’t a job, and Gilbert supposed they figured he couldn’t do much with a mop. They just had to make sure they kept him away from stairs. 

There were lots of stairs in prison, too. All made out of concrete. Everything was dull, off-white concrete, especially the floors. And they were porous, too, and textured to hell. Gilbert watched someone get shanked a month back, and even after two hours of scrubbing the blood out of the floor, there was still a faint stain. They called it “Johnny’s Puddle”, and in his memory, it became the go-to meeting place for shiv deals. 

No one ever tried to shiv him. People got what they wanted out of him without threatening. When he was younger he had figured it was just his nature, that he was simply laid back enough, but as his default disposition waned into vague emptiness, he realized it was just his own inability to care about what happened to himself. 

Once, a few months back, he’d had a dream of being stabbed. There was no attacker, just a sudden, shooting pain across his stomach, dragging slowly and deeply up his chest. His legs went numb and his organs spilled out between his fingers and seeped into the icy floor. He was someplace crowded, like a busy sidewalk or a fairground, but the floor was the same beige concrete of his prison cell. Most passed him by without seeing him; some others called out to him, and for the briefest moment, Gilbert thought they would reach out and stuff his body back into his skin and sew him shut with wire. But no one did. Instead they screamed at him to get up, and when Gilbert looked for his legs, he’d found they’d been trampled by the crowd and now bone split from the skin at impossible angles. He reached out for someone, but when he touched them, they turned to him and cut his hand off. He felt back against the ground and laid there as passersby tripped over his stomach and stepped in his intestines. What was left leaked out of him and as more and more people walked across his body and carried bits of him away on the bottom of their shoes, Gilbert faded into a puddle on the sidewalk. 

And once he’d grown too large, and faded too much to be stuck back together, someone came around and put up a sign, warning people not to trudge through the sludge of his remains, or they might drown. And distantly, through all the voices, he heard someone hope for a storm, to wash him down the gutter, so that at least the good people wouldn’t be forced to walk around him anymore. 

The hot sun came and stole bits of him, too. Now parts of the concrete shown through, and his puddle was perforated in a thousand different places and evaporating into the air. It was harsh and heavy and he could do nothing to alleviate the sting of the sun. It bore down over him and strangled him until there wasn’t an ounce left of him on the sidewalk, not even a stain for someone to gripe over, and that’s how he woke. 

He didn’t startle. He stirred from sleep a few minutes before the wake-up call. Small patches of dawn filtered into the otherwise black room and halls, and there were no voices, no detectable breathing, not even from himself. 

He laid there until the alarm sounded, and the guards came down and ran their batons along the rails like a game. The guards smiled to each other and looked at Gilbert like the hecklers in his dream. He moved along with the crowd the beige halls, no one really looking at him but the guards, who turned back to each other and sneered, and all along their walk to the showers, bright fluorescent lights hung overhead. Once in the showers Gilbert and all the other inmates washed their sweat and grime down one rusting drain, and the lights were here, too, beating down on them like the sun. 

And this, Gilbert realized, was how all his time passed. Moving in a crowd of people, whether under the sun of under the fluorescents, it did not matter. There were guards and hecklers, and though they had different names, they were the same. When his suffering hadn’t abided, he realized it was because existence was what he wished to escape, and that time, no matter how fast or how slow, would never repair the holes the sun had made in him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I write weird shit again.


	4. "Maybe you should stop lying."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A convict has good life advice it seems. Not sure if Gilbert will listen to him, though.

It’d been a year. 

Time didn’t really mean a thing at this point. It could have been relaxing if Gilbert hadn’t been fucking everything up, though. Ludwig promised he would write to him, and he did. It seemed he mailed every week. At first, they were about Ludwig and his summer classes, but as the months continued on, and the nights got longer, Ludwig talked less about himself and his concern for Gilbert became incessant. Gilbert stopped responding. At one point, he even stopped reading the letters all-together. He didn’t know why. 

It made him sick. Like something cold and bitter festering in his stomach and seeping into his skin. Reading the letters and thinking about how far away Ludwig was, and how happy he could be if Gilbert wasn’t around made the feeling intensify to a magnitude which made him dry heave. 

He cried most of the time in the winter months. But they were dry cries. It was the sort of sobbing a wretch does in lieu of living. Sometimes silently, with only his shoulders shaking and his throat burning from swallowing against the misery; other times it was violent, and he screamed so loud the next morning his voice was hoarse. 

And that’s when Gilbert realized that’s exactly what his existence was. Pressed between a spring mattress and the length of his sentence, he existed. He was a thing which could be recorded in the span of time and space—there was evidence of him: birth certificate, kindergarten graduation diploma, driver’s license, his military I.D.—but he wasn’t a participant in the world. Just a passive thing with which the world passed over like the bruised fruit at the market. He realized that he would rot under the sun, and he wished for the burning pain to be done with. 

It was spring now, and the promise of summer was just around the corner. It meant Ludwig on break again, and him visiting, and Gilbert didn’t know what he would do. He wasn’t sure he knew how to face him. Two days ago, an attendant told him his brother had arranged a visit to come and see him on Friday. 

But Gilbert still had the ability to refuse the visit. They’d call him, and tell him not to come down, and it was just as easy as that. But Gilbert couldn’t bring himself to do that. He had no idea why and it rattled around in his brain for the past couple days. 

Until he had a conversation with one of his kinda-maybe friends. They were enjoying rec time, mostly by leaning on the fence and keeping their hands tight in their pockets.

“Hey, Bat-boy.” Gilbert greeted over the crunch of snow under footsteps.

“Ugh. I hate that.” His breath puffed white in the air and his face looked as cold as Gilbert’s felt

“Who wouldn’t?”

Gilbert found conversation was also meaningless in prison. It seemed wherever people went, they still managed to find some topic to smalltalk about. 

“Did Don bring the kids like she said she’d?”

“No,” Daniel huffed, and kicked some snow around with his foot.

“What a bitch.”

“Yeah. Damn kids need a father.”

“You gon’ father from prison?”

“I could. If they would let me skype. It would totally work.” Daniel said, cracking his back.

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“Prove it.”

“There’s nothing to prove. You can’t hit a kid over a video call.”

“That’s not the only thing to fathering—and that’s not even a fathering thing, that’s just a shitty thing.”

“Prove it.”

“I’m here, and I got hit.”

“Maybe you just didn’t get hit for the right reasons,” he offered. 

“Right. I’m here because my father should have hit me when I was six and stole my first bike. And you’re not here because you can’t control you temper, but because your dad didn’t hit you after your first temper tantrum. You’ve got a real victim-complex there, Gil. You gotta own up to what you did and admit it was all your doin’, and nobody else’s.”

Gilbert grinned so hard the mostly-healed lip he’d split last week from ‘slipping’ in the showers suddenly ached again. “Oh, I’ve owned up to all my guilty misdeeds, trust me.”  
Daniel hummed and looked at Gilbert. 

“What?” asked Gilbert.

“Nothin’.” 

“Daniel, I told you, you can’t do that shit. It’s the same thing as saying, ‘guess what’ and then ‘nevermind’. It drives me insane.”

Daniel chuckled, “I think you need to chill out a bit.”

Gilbert made an exaggerated movement with his head that could have possibly appeared as though he was demonstrating how relaxed he was by how freely his neck and shoulders could move. But it mostly just looked weird. But Daniel was used to it and let it pass. 

“I am entirely chill. I, like a normal person, simply cannot tolerate bullshit.”

“Speaking of bullshit,” Daniel seized any topic he could, “You decide what you’re gonna do about that brother of yours?”

“Fuck.” Gilbert rubbed his hands on his face. “No.”

“I don’t understand why this is so hard for you. I think you’re being unnecessarily difficult.”

“Because I don’t know what to say to him.”

“’Cause you’ve been ignoring him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, why have you been ignoring him?”

“Because he’s so—obnoxiously concerned with me. Always asking me how I’m doing and promising me I can tell him anything, and that he’ll never be disgusted or ashamed of me, and telling me if someone rapes me I should tell the officers.”

“Wow. What a monster.”

“Fuck you, Bat-boy.” Gilbert sighed. “It’s just so tiring.” 

“Lying.” Daniel supplied. 

“Lying.” Gilbert agreed. 

“Maybe you should stop lying.” Daniel offered. “You know, you’ve got a really good little brother. I’m a little brother in my family, and I’m terrible. You must’ve been a good big brother for him to care that much about you. He stuck with you throughout the whole trial even after what you did.” 

Gilbert grew immeasurably sad at that. “He didn’t really have a choice.” 

“Nonsense. Everybody has a choice. And he chose you.”

“It’s more like I chose him.”

“Whatever weird way you have to reword it to admit it, Gil. Point is, you’re probably inseparable, you know. That’s a strong bond you two’ve got. You should tell him as such next time you see him. And be honest with him.” 

“I thought you were a shitty little brother.”

“I was. But my older brother was also really shitty. Maybe all it takes is to have a good older brother.”

“I’m not adopting you, Bat-boy.” Gilbert deadpanned.

“I wouldn’t want you as an older brother anyhow, you’re too skinny. Older brother’s gotta be tough so they can beat the shit out of their little brother’s bullies.”

“Ludwig’s way buff now. You should see him. I bet you he could lift me over his head in one go. But he was just an average kid until he hit puberty. When we were younger nobody picked on him, even though he was like, the biggest fucking dork—I’d have to catch him before he left for middle school and pull his shirt out of his pants—but the guys I hung out with were kind of nuts, but I had a car, so we combined to be this terrible force of big shits who would run over the little shits. ‘Would’ being the operative word. Never did, but people were pretty sure we would.”

“I don’t know why, but I feel like I just learned way too much about you from just that one story.”

The bell sounded at the end of the hour, and rec time was over.

“Let’s go.”

“You gonna see your brother.”

“Yeah.”

Daniel grinned. 

“Yeah, yeah, you did your good deed for the year. You can go back to being unhelpful now.” 

“I have no idea how so much snark can exist in one person. Especially someone as small as you.”

“Daniel, I’m three inches taller than you.” 

“Ooh, my real name, now I know what gets your goat.”

“And there’s so much room for snark because there’s not much else in me.” 

“Yeah, yeah, okay, Amy Lee, let’s get hurry up. I don’t want to get beaten for noncompliance in the snow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be Gilbert and Ludwig meeting. Sorry for the delay in a submission. There's a playlist on 8tracks for this fic, though. https://8tracks.com/copperning/our-love-s-the-perfect-crime-i-ll-serve-this-sentence-the-rest-of-my-life


	5. "And this was the moment where they teetered on the edge of shattering everything."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woo, Gilbert psychologically breaks.

Friday came to him too fast and not fast enough at the same time. The days in between were like the perilous journey meat animals took to the slaughterhouse. They knew, on some level, about their fate. How could they not? They were born into the world the way they were, and no amount of struggling or bellowing could help them. Maybe they could fight, but Gilbert couldn’t. They had horns and hooves, and families that would protect them. Gilbert had nothing compared to them. 

Like them, Gilbert’s veins flooded with panic at the unknown end of the road. He didn’t know many things, and each of them paralyzed him. Firstly, he didn’t know what the conversation with his brother today would hold. That was the most immediate thing. And it was, of course, entirely his fault, but he couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t possible. But more than that, he didn’t know where he stood in his brother’s eyes. He was weak, but was he weak to his brother? Did his brother think him pathetic? Or did he think that Gilbert belonged there? Though, Ludwig knew he wasn’t guilty of the crime, but maybe he was so wrought with sin that it didn’t matter the sentence—that all he needed was punishment. Maybe he was incapable of living on his own, and the structure of prison was necessary for him.

Gilbert also didn’t know how much Ludwig knew, either. About anything. About his suffering—which never improved, no matter where he went. Nor was he certain if Ludwig knew all that had happened to him. Either here, or before. How much he knew, how much he’d figured out, how much he never would, and how much he ignored. Whether Gilbert told him was neither here nor there, and they were some things he knew he could never tell him. 

He didn’t know if he would die before he was released, and he didn’t know if he would die at the end of a long and happy life. The latter didn’t seem very likely. He didn’t know which of these situations he preferred. But most of all, he didn’t know if he could be happy. If this queasiness would ever go away, or if the complete and utter hopelessness would ever abide. How was he supposed to be happy when there was nothing worth living for? He had no idea where he was going, and not an ounce of sense to figure it out.

These are the thoughts which occupied his mind as he waited for his brother. Gilbert hoped the knot in his stomach would disappear before his brother arrived. His palms were sweaty and his heartbeat was in his ears; he felt like a little kid again—like he’d done something wrong.

He had, of course, but it was still strange for him to feel nervous about his little brother, of all people. His brother, who was so good at school he applied for a program and got to go to college two years early. Gilbert was an anxious mess and consumed with doubts and fears. He was truant and eventually dropped out, and a year later, his little brother was already in college. Ludwig was bookish and dignified at twenty-one and Gilbert was in prison at twenty-four. 

Gilbert didn’t know what sort of things made his life turn out this way. He didn’t know if he could help it. He sighed and when Ludwig showed up, he didn’t even need to look up. He felt his stare and didn’t even shift under it. He was too tired and too sad to feel any worse.

“Hey, Gil.” His brother’s voice was strong and without even looking up, Gilbert knew worry lines had morphed the bottom of his face into something heavy with pity. It was there in his voice, and in the energy between them, and it was too much. All the concern and love and desperation from his brother was hard for Gilbert’s weak and crumbling state to hold up against. He broke in front of his brother, inside an institution which claimed to fix the sick and demented. 

“Lutz, I’m so sorry. I can’t—“ Still he wouldn’t look up. The anxiety and uncertainty flood into his chest and pressed against the back of his ribs.

Ludwig opened his mouth, closed it, and finally sat down. He stayed silent for a long time, and alternated between fumbling with his tie and frowning. He sighed a few times but finally softened after looking at Gilbert too long. But while he stared, the silence stretched the two brothers apart and pushed Gilbert toward an invisible edge, which he had been steadily stumbling towards since—no one could possibly know when. Maybe since he got to prison—or perhaps it was since the incident at Christmas. But that didn’t feel right. Gilbert had an uncomfortable suspicion that he’d felt this way since he’d woken one day in Summer strangely and inexplicably cold. 

Gilbert let out a shuddering breath at the same moment his brother let out a gentle one. Ludwig waited for his brother to speak, but it didn’t look that Gilbert would continue on his own. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do in a situation like this. His brother was shaking, and something troubled him so much he couldn’t speak, and Ludwig was at a complete loss for how he was supposed to help—if he could help, to begin with. If only he could get his brother to look at him. He could implore into him, then, and encourage him, but it seemed he needed to find his voice, so that Gilbert could find his own.

“What is it, Gilbert?” Curiosity and concern mingled with his words in a way he hoped was coaxing enough for his brother. He tried not to get too close, so afraid he was of crowding his brother and making him sink more into himself. 

“I can’t—do it anymore.” Gilbert sobbed. 

Ludwig’s stomach sank. “Gilbert, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—I should be here instead. I’ll go to the district attorney’s office today. They won’t get me in until Monday, and I don’t know how long after that a trial would take for something like this. But I’ll tell them it wasn’t you, and maybe they’ll move you to the county jail—“

Gilbert shook his head and a laugh strangled with sobs escaped his throat. “No, it’s not.” He swallowed around the burning in his throat. “It’s not here. It’s not—I can’t do this—I can’t live anymore.”

Ludwig stopped breathing. “What?” And this was the moment where they teetered on the edge of shattering everything. The status quo—the moment before you put your lips on the pipe and take your first hit. Whoever you could be as a person dies in that same moment. Only it’s disguised by the swarming of the butterflies in your stomach. You don’t know you. You can’t feel it. And this was the last chance Gilbert had to save that version of himself. To run backward and continue his life in the same miserable fashion. He could reassure Lutz, tell him it was nothing, and maybe he’d let it go, and everything would be okay.

But Gilbert realized that no matter what lies he told, he wouldn’t be okay. And so he stopped lying, and tried something he had been too afraid to do for years. He let himself go, whoever that may have been, and whoever that may become, and stopped lying. He reached out, laced his fingers between his brother’s, and marveled at how warm and comforting they were. He clung to them like they were a lifesaver and he was a drowning man. He reveled in this moment of safety, something he hadn’t felt for a long time. He wanted to stay connected to his brother and the thought that he’d be forced away from him after their meager hour of visitation time somehow made his numbness all the more painful. 

“I want to die, Lutz. I’ve wanted to die for a long time. Way before everything happened. Since I was young. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I don’t—“ Gilbert hyperventilated about every other sentence. “know what’s wrong with me. But I don’t want to live anymore.” Gilbert looked up at his brother now. Lutz would never stop looking at his brother after that. He refused. He would treasure his brother. Lutz was suddenly terrified of leaving him alone. He squeezed his hand so tight Gilbert wouldn’t be able to forget he was there with him. Gilbert sobbed, and recounted his numbness and hopelessness, until their time together came to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm considering giving up on this work idk,, this fandom isn't really around anymore.


	6. "Maybe they thought if you filled your walls with photos, they could cover up all the ugly, broken parts of yourself."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on all my encounters with doctors super ready to give me meds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's been a full month. Had some stuff. Should be back to updating every two weeks now.

The beige walls, beige carpet, and the beige psychiatrist made Gilbert dizzy. How it could be that so much beige managed to concentrate itself into what was essentially a closet, Gilbert hadn’t any idea. Colorful posters hung from the walls, impermanently fixed with those adhesive strips that wouldn’t leave any evidence they existed once peeled off. They were out of place there. A smattering of color trying to distract from the bland reality it was allowed to briefly cling to. Alternatively picturesque shots of sunsets or cornfields, with a single, vague word exploding in the middle, like ‘inspire’ or ‘live’, or those that were simply word jumbles, with ‘love’ and ‘joy’ surrounded by smaller but equally empty words. Others had no words at all, and seemed to just be candid photos of things that would calm someone, like a yawning puppy in a field of cornflowers, or a gaggle of geese paddling in an idyllic lake scene. 

Gilbert was not to be deceived, however. The posters were nothing more than stock photos with some word art slapped over them. A graphic design major’s idea of comfort. Maybe they thought if you filled your walls with photos, they could cover up all the ugly, broken parts of yourself. But they couldn’t. At most, they were a distraction. Something soft and easy and grounding for you to rest your eyes upon, instead of a wall of mirrors, reflecting back only your emptiness. 

The psychiatrist uncrossed and recrossed her legs, adjusted the legal pad on her knee, while gently twirling her pen. She offered a kind expression, but it was smileless. Gilbert wasn’t sure how she managed that. He always had to opposite problem. Gave smiles without any warmth in them. Tried to be reassuring, but just wound up off-putting everyone around him, like some sort of imitation pine tree on Christmas. You could put ornaments on it just the same, and maybe stick one of those pine-scented car fresheners in it, to mask the nauseating smell of plastic. 

It was her eyes, Gilbert realized. Smiles came from the eyes, not the mouth, and those who knew that knew how to offer them with a thousand different nuances. Crows feet crinkled the corners of her eyes, exposing the areas where her foundation couldn’t quite penetrate, and all at once, Gilbert was reminded of his mother. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was better or worse. 

He shifted under her gaze, then. It may have been warm and reassuring, but it was penetrating. She was trying to coax his voice out of his throat, to get him to spill is stomach and bile on the floor between them, so she could poke and prod with the tip of her pen at all the horrible things wriggling inside of him. Like some kind of guide of a safari, showing tourists tar pits and quicksand bogs. A spectacle of nature to be admired from a distance, and agitated to expose the pitiful way it squirms and unravels. A marvel for observation, a phenomena for study, a subject for testing. No matter where he went, even the help saw him as a thing. An objective piece of existence, fitting in categories designed for empirical, impersonal study. 

In order to be cataloged, though, Gilbert must give them insight into his delusion. And so, it came back to the psychiatrist and her smileless expression. She wanted to help Gilbert feel at ease, and that’s when he noticed a humidifier on her desk, gently wafting out what must have been lavender. That scent, the perfect 70 degree temperature, the beige carpet, kitsch posters, gentle lightning, drawn curtains, and the comely woman were all poised here to be a settling scene, some place safe, where the words spoken never drafted beyond the walls. 

It seemed, though, that the psychiatrist thought Gilbert could do with a little bit of prompting. But Gilbert hadn’t expected her to be so blunt. Another trait which reminded him of his mother. He’d expected something like ‘what brings you in today?’ or even something more leading than that. But not the words Gilbert suspected were right off his prison medical report. 

“I understand you’ve been having suicide ideation.” She said.

Gilbert thought he should care about how light and unaffected her tone was. But he realized this was her job. She probably saw this as just another Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Whatever day it was. She’d be used to this sort of thing, Gilbert reasoned, so he let the casualness of it all slip off his shoulders like a discarded noose. 

“Yeah.” He said, mouth dry. 

The psychiatrist inclined her head. “Let’s talk about it.” She clicked her pen. “Have you made any plans as far as how you would go about it?” 

They always asked that question. It was a way for them to gauge how serious you were. The more specific an answer, the greater danger you were to yourself. It’s the difference between uncommitted contemplation, which is little more than a day-dream, and preparation, where you actually start amassing the tools you require.

Gilbert rolled his shoulders like it was easy. “Maybe choke on a cock.” 

The psychiatrist didn’t react. Didn’t flinch, blink, or even write anything down. Watching Gilbert with an impassive expression, she replied, bored and rehearsed: “If you don’t tell me anything substantial, I can’t help you. Your brother requested this intake, but beyond that, there’s nothing forcing you to be here, or to even talk to me. But a lot of inmates don’t handle the stress of being institutionalized as well as they think. There’s nothing weak about talking about your feelings. It can actually make you stronger.”

It was never about being weak to Gilbert. It may be that way for other inmates, for other men, concerned about masculinity, or so socially conditioned to suppress, that it actually hurts for them to express—goes against their upbringing, however twisted it may have been—but Gilbert knew he was weak. Fragile like glass and just as transparent. His father saw it. His mother ignored it. His brother watched him from afar, too afraid to disturb the air and shake Gilbert from the thinning thread that tethered him to the world. 

Gilbert sighed and leaned all the way back across the couch, letting his head slump against the headrest. “We do the same thing everyday.” 

“Could you elaborate?” The psychiatrist said, like she were reading from a manual. ‘How To Deal With The Mentally Ill’ or better yet ‘A Hundred Ways To Be Obtrusive And Still Call It Helping’. 

Gilbert cracked his neck. “You go to work, you go home, you go to work, you go home. Until its the weekend, and you just sit around until the workweek again. And then when you get old an retire you get to worry about shitting yourself. Everything is either lackluster or painful. There’s not even good things breaking it up. Once I’m out of here it’s back to that, and I don’t want to go back.” 

“You know that’s not how it’s supposed to be, right?” She asked.

“How is what supposed to be?” Gilbert frowned.

“Life isn’t supposed to be miserable like that. If you don’t ever feel happy or like life is worth living, then there’s something awry with you. Chemicals in our brains are responsible for how we feel about the world around us. Problems can arise when too much or too little of a certain chemical is released.”

Gilbert looked out the window, only just now noticing the bars. “So happiness is just chemicals.” 

He didn’t see it, but Gilbert was sure she shrugged. “That’s one way of looking at it. All emotions are just chemicals. The whole world is just chemical reactions. But you should be enjoying it, at least some of the time. When was the last time you felt happy?”

“I don’t know.”

She wrote something down. “We can attempt to fix the chemical imbalance with medication. Is that something you would be interested in pursuing?” 

“My mom was on antidepressants.” He said.

She hummed. “In a lot of cases where mental illness is genetic, life-long medication is extremely likely. I can prescribe something to you after I double-check your medical history.” 

“She had anxiety, too. I have anxiety.” He said, hurriedly.

“In what situations?”

“All the time. I can’t breathe and I feel like I’m going to throw up, and there’s a tightness in my chest, and I don’t know how to make it stop. I could just be sitting there doing nothing and it’ll happen.” 

“Well, a lot of antidepressants are also effective for treating anxiety, so you’re in luck. You may experience your symptoms worsening for the first month.”

“That’s kind of fucked.”

“There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that while antidepressants may increase suicidal thoughts for the first month of treatment, they actually diminish suicidal actions.” 

Gilbert hummed disinterestedly. Her heard her pen scratching against the paper. “The pharmacist should have your medication by the end of the week. They’ll give you a pill each day during meal time.”

“Is that so I don’t swallow them all to kill myself?”

“You’ll be starting on 20 mg. Even if you got a 30-day supply, that’s only 600 mg. Fatal doses depend on body weight and tolerance, but they usually don’t start until 2,000 mg. Even then you’d probably only suffer liver damage or possibly a not-fatal seizure.”

“Oh.”

“I’m thinking about putting you on fluoxetine. Let me or the pharmacist know if you experience any nausea or sleep disturbances. Those are pretty common but usually subside after the first few weeks. There’s also the usual things like dry mouth and drowsiness. But if something is too difficult, we can always try a different medication. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get the right one.” 

Gilbert nodded. 

A little while later a knock came on the door and two guards lead Gilbert out of the medical wing and back up the stairs to his cell. He curled up on his cot, feeling exhausted but not tired, and eventually drifted off into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
